Radiotelephone systems are commonly employed to provide voice and data communications to a plurality of mobile units or subscribers. For example, analog cellular radiotelephone systems, such as designated AMPS, ETACS, NMT-450, and NMT-900, have been deployed successfully throughout the world. More recently, digital cellular radiotelephone systems such as designated IS-54B in North America and the pan-European GSM system have been introduced. These systems, and others, are described, for example, in the book titled Cellular Radio Systems by Balston, et al., published by Artech House, Norwood, Mass., 1993.
As illustrated in FIG. 1, a conventional cellular communication system 20 includes one or more mobile terminals 10 which can communicate with one or more base stations 20 serving cells 30. The base stations 20 are connected to a mobile telephone switching office (MTSO) 40, which may in turn be connected to a public switched telephone network 50. Although only two cells 20 are shown in FIG. 1, a typical cellular network may include hundreds of base stations, thousands of mobile terminals and more than one MTSO. Each cell will have allocated to it one or more dedicated control channels and one or more voice channels. Through this cellular infrastructure, a communication link may be effected between two mobile terminals 10, or between a mobile terminal 10 and a landline telephone 60, with a base station 20 typically functioning as a relay station for data and voice information.
Components of a radio communications channel connecting a mobile terminal 10 and a base station 20 which can affect communications between the terminal 10 and the base station 20 include the communications medium, i.e., the atmospheric signal path across which radio communications signals are transmitted, which may introduce fading and interference into the radio communications signals. The fading may include long-term fading due to variations in terrain along the signal propagation path, as well as short-term multipath fading due to reflections from features such as buildings which cause fluctuations in received signal strength and other distortions at a receiving station. Mobile terrestrial radiotelephone communications are particularly susceptible to short-term multipath fading because the signal pathways tend to be close to the ground. Other elements which may have an effect on communications include transmitting and receiving components commonly found in base stations and mobile terminals, such as transmitters, receivers and antennas.
Various signal estimation techniques are conventionally employed to deal with signal degradation on a channel, including diversity reception, signal coding, and specialized demodulation techniques which produce estimates of a channel transfer characteristic. Diversity reception techniques included spatial diversity reception using multiple spaced apart receiving antennas, and polarization diversity reception using multiple antennas designed to accept electromagnetic signals having particular polarizations. As signals from diverse paths typically exhibit uncorrelated fading, they may be combined in the receiver to provide a more accurate estimate of information from a received signal. Signal coding schemes typically employ redundancy to enhance the accuracy of an estimate produced from a received signal, while channel estimation techniques such as pilot tone or symbol assisted modulation and demodulation can provide improved knowledge of a transfer characteristic for the channel to aid in estimating information from a received signal.
Despite the theoretical advantages of these estimation techniques, they may provide less than optimal communication under various propagation conditions encountered in a typical cellular communications system. Diversity reception may not provide sufficient gain because of limitations on antenna size, orientation, and placement, and may be ineffective or unnecessary at particular speeds or other conditions. Coding schemes may entail an undesirable computational burden, while parameters used in estimating the channel may not be optimal for all mobile terminal speeds and under all delay spread conditions.